Having taken on and conquered Broadway, Canadian composers Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison now have a new target in their musical sights: the mayor of London's anti-pigeon policies.

LONDON–Having taken on and conquered Broadway, Canadian composers Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison now have a new target in their musical sights: the mayor of London's anti-pigeon policies.

Teaming up with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Tony-winning co-creators of The Drowsy Chaperone have sent a singing telegram to Mayor Ken Livingstone, hoping to persuade him to rescind his ban on feeding birds in Trafalgar Square.

In a song called "A Breadcrumb Now and Then," Lambert and Morrison sing the praises of the fowl that Livingstone has denigrated as "rats with wings" and a threat to public health. The lyrics list little-known facts about the much-maligned birds, for instance that a baby pigeon is called a "squeaker" and that an adult can reach speeds of 80 km/h. "We respect a lot of work PETA does," explains Lambert in an e-mail from New York City, where the Torontonian has recently relocated following the success of The Drowsy Chaperone. "So when PETA told us the mayor's decision would result in the starvation of these pigeons, we believed them and gave them permission to include the song in a package they were sending to London."

The London mayor's ban was not the original reason Lambert and Morrison wrote their paean to pigeons, however. The tunesmiths composed the song last fall for the launch of a new edition of a PETA-sponsored children's book by Ingrid Newkirk called 50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals. Lambert's brother Philip Schein, who works for the animal rights organization, had asked his sister to lend her newfound star power to the event. Lambert was drawn to the pigeon page.

"It has a section listing all the cool attributes of pigeons and it sounded like a song already," says Lambert, who remembers enjoying watching the birds in Trafalgar Square on a trip to London in the 1980s. "Neither Greg nor I are vegetarians, but as neither of us eat pigeon, we didn't feel hypocritical writing the song."

Sung at the book launch by Georgia Engel, the former Mary Tyler Moore Show star who is currently playing Mrs. Tottendale in The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway, "A Breadcrumb Now and Then" so impressed the people at PETA that they got permission from the two composers to send a recording of the song overseas.

For almost six years, Livingstone has waged war on pesky pigeons – and their animal activist defenders. He introduced bylaws outlawing the sale of feed or feeding birds in Trafalgar Square. He brought in trained hawks to scare the pigeons away. Livingstone says the flocks discourage tourists and cause significant damage to the square's historic Nelson's Column.

The opposition Liberal Democrats agree that the pigeons are a nuisance but object to the mayor's expenditure of £226,000, or about $525,000 Canadian, to reduce the birds from 5,000 to under 1,000.

The latest skirmish in the pigeon battle ignited last spring, when animal activists discovered a loophole that allowed them to continue feeding pigeons on the north terrace of Trafalgar Square. A bylaw is currently being considered by Westminster Council to ban the feeding of pigeons there, too. During the bylaw's public consultation, PETA sent the mayor a singing telegram with a rendition of "A Breadcrumb Now and Then."

Lambert and Morrison's song, however, did not move the mayor.

Unfortunately for them, "the singing telegram makes no difference to the mayor of London's view that excessive feeding of feral pigeons on Trafalgar Square had to stop," said Benjamin McKnight in the mayor's press office.

Lambert, who wrote singing telegrams in Toronto from 1985 to 2000, holds out hope for the pigeons. "As a Canadian now living in Manhattan, I often identify more with the pigeons on the street than the flocks of tourists and native New Yorkers," she notes.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.